Page 87 of Manhattan Secret

It’s delusion at its best.

She thinks her little plan worked and here I am offering her my dick.

I haven’t once shown her any indication I want to get into her pants—not in all these years, yet one lingering look and she’s forgotten the many times I’ve rejected her gently, so I didn’t hurt her feelings.

“Do you remember that day we met, Riles?” Deliberately using the old nickname, it softens her up real nice as she relaxes into laughter and goes on to recount the day Theo and I came upon two kids pushing her off her bike and how I carried her home on my back while Theo hauled her mangled bike.

“You were my hero that day,” she chuckles, flipping her hair, getting in closer. So close I can put my mouth on the side of her neck, if I want to.

“It’s what you do for people you give a fuck about.”

Just to fuck with her beaming face, I reach out and move a piece of hair that’s fallen in her eyes.

Why the fuck she’s fixated on me all these years, I don’t know. She’s hot, can have any guy and make him her puppet and because she’s in my crew, her status is at its highest.

I’ve known her to be devious with other chicks before, just put it down to chicks being catty to each other. I don’t dig into the reasons why, mainly because I don’t give a crap. I even find her outbursts funny sometimes.

“So, you wanna get out of here? Mom is working nights; the house is empty.”

“In a bit. I’m liking just hanging out with you right now.”

“Oh,” I’ve flustered her. I know this, because when Riley gets embarrassed, she maniacally twists the bracelets around her wrist. I smirk at her, charming like a viper. “Good, That’s cool. I wanna hang with you too. It won’t be the same when you go to Boston.”

“I’ll be back here all the time. I have a reason to come after all.”

Laney. My Laney. My fucking girlfriend.

Riley flushes.

“I wanna tell you a story, Riles. But give me your phone a second, mines dead and I need to tell Zander to pick me up tomorrow.”

So trusting, she hands over her smartphone.

I remember a couple of years ago when her phone smashed, and her mom wouldn’t get her a new one. Who did? Fucking me.

With Riley all cozy against my shoulder, I make out like I’m texting my boy, when it fact, I’m doing a little digging to check what the fuck she’s said to him and is he in on this too. The last texts between them are generic shit, nothing to alert me to Zander so I guess he’ll live.

Maybe he has some loyalty in him after all.

Next though, I flip to her emails and I don’t even have to scroll very far, she hasn’t deleted shit from her trash bin, there are the two threatening emails.

She even has three more ready to go in the drafts.

My blood boils while I keep an outward calm on my face.

“Who am I, Riley?”

She gives me ahuhblink, nose scrunched up.

“You’re Lachlan Fierro.”

“Yeah,” I agree.

“What’s the story?” She asks, reaching for her phone. I keep it in my hand, turning it over and over, and she looks all kinds of confused while I smile, ready to bring the hammer of my Fierro justice down on her head.

“Loyalty, Riley. And just how much of it you don’t have.”

“W-what? What are you talking about? I thought we were gonna hang out.”

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